TRAVERSE CITY — The clock is ticking on the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the negotiations haven't even started yet.

All three countries involved — Canada, Mexico and the U.S. — believe the trade agreement must be renegotiated quickly if the discussions are going to be successful.

The Trump administration, struggling with health care reform and searching for major policy victories, is hungry for a major political victory. Canada has a seasoned negotiating team in place and is ready to dive into thorny trade issues. And Mexico, seeking to avoid a political firestorm, wants to get a deal done before its presidential campaign is in full swing next year.

For those reasons, auto industry groups say they are preparing to mount a full-court press to make sure the industry's point of view continues to be at the forefront of negotiators' minds.

"I think the United States and Mexico, in particular, want to move forward as quickly as possible. The (Trump) administration has said they would like to tackle big issues early in the process," Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, said Wednesday at an automotive industry conference in Traverse City.

The first round of the negotiations among the U.S., Canada and Mexico will take place in Washington, D.C., from Aug. 16-20.

Quickly renegotiating NAFTA would give Trump, who made criticism of the agreement a centerpiece of his campaign, a key victory.

Mexico wants a new agreement by early next year, before a presidential election that is likely to pit current Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto against current poll leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a fiery left-wing nationalist.

Canada has strong negotiating teams already in place that have experience negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership that ultimately was not adopted, as well as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement — an agreement signed between Canada and Europe last year.

If negotiators don't move quickly, any agreement that is ultimately signed runs the risk of getting bogged down in the approval process as each country seeks to ratify it at home.

That's what happened with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation agreement signed by the Obama administration that Congress failed to ratify before Trump took office and scuttled the deal. Also, political uncertainty could increase in the U.S. after the midterm elections in 2018 and as Canada holds provincial elections that same year.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer's office is seeking public comments on what changes need to be made in the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.(Photo: EVAN VUCCI / AP FILE PHOTO)

But can the three countries reach a new agreement on the controversial trade deal as fast as they need to?

Those challenges include reviewing complicated processes such as the percent of content on a car that must come from a country to qualify for tariff free trade, eCommerce issues, labor laws, safety regulations, environmental regulations and more.

Those close to the negotiations say a lot of language from the more technical issues can be borrowed and adapted from work done during negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mexico said Wednesday it is willing to talk about tough issues. Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said Wednesday in Mexico City that Mexico would be willing to put stronger labor and environmental guarantees in NAFTA. The issues were previously relegated to weak “side agreements.” Mexico also wants the energy sector included in the agreement. It wasn’t covered by the original 1994 trade pact among the three countries.

"For Mexico, it is our preference to have something finalized before the 2017 elections," said Francisco Sandoval-Saqui, who spoke in Traverse City at the Management Briefing Seminars. "We don’t want to have the possibility that an electoral process could be …contaminated with the negotiations of NAFTA."

Colin Bird, a Canadian trade official, said the high level of pressure from the Trump administration creates an opportunity that might not otherwise exist.

"All three countries have an incentive to move quickly. And you’ve got a lot of work that’s already been done in the context of the TPP negotiations. And you’ve got a level of engagement on the political side that can shorten time frames between negotiating sessions. ... When you’ve got that level of political involvement it means you can move faster."

Despite all of that optimism, there are many who remain deeply skeptical that the three nations can meet their unofficial deadline.

To successfully negotiate, sign and adopt a deal in 12 months, negotiators probably need to reach a deal in six months.

Caroline Freund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for Institutional Economics, said the only trade deals successfully negotiated a six-month time frame by the U.S. are with countries that have kings.

And by "kings," Freund literally means kings. Countries like Bahrain, Oman and Jordan. But the U.S. doesn't actually conduct much trade with those countries. Plus, it had a template it could follow that was suitable for those countries.

"So, I just think its completely unfeasible to do a full, big modernization of NAFTA in the time period allowed," Freund said Wednesday.